WisCon 29, Day Four

The final day of the con. It's more of a half-day since many people catch flights and drive out around midday.

I caught part of the panel "Short Stories vs. Novels", which was sort of interesting, but not really useful to me specifically. I think I'd expected more of a discussion of how it was different to write short stories than novels, but it seemed like it was more of a discussion of whether people enjoyed writing or reading short stories vs. novels. (It only occurs to me in retrospect that I should have piped up and asked questions to steer the discussion in the direction I was interested in. However, it often doesn't occur to me until after the fact what it is about the panel that's not working for me. Plus, first-thing-in-the-morning panels aren't great ones for me to participate in, since I haven't shaken off the cobwebs from my brain.)

I sorta skipped lunch today, going up to the con suite to have a hot dog and a few munchies. Then I went down to the SignOut.

The SignOut is a pretty neat idea, new since I was last at WisCon. Rather than scheduling signings throughout the con - and thus having both writers and attendees have to choose between a signing and a panel - they have one big signing in a big room with all the writers/artists/whoever, and with no programming scheduled against it. The room had plenty of space for lines for autographs, and plenty of additional room to stand around and chat with people without getting in anyone's way. (Plus, there was more of that hotel coffee with flavored creamer. Mmmmmm...)

I only got one autograph, having noted blogger John Scalzi autograph his novel Old Man's War, which I read on the plane flight out (and of which I'll put up a review at some point). Longtime readers may recall that I met John several years ago at JournalCon 2002 (oddly, in my entry for JournalCon I refer to his blog as "John Scalzi's Whatever Column". Of course, I didn't read it at the time; I do now). John is one of those people I'd recommend seeing if you see him at a con, as he's funny, smart, and a smartass - all fine qualities, to my mind. Somehow I missed seeing any of his panels at WisCon, though. I did spot him briefly on Friday at the Gathering, though oddly I noticed his wife first, having recognized her from his photos of her in the Whatever.

The final panel I attended was "Can We Be Equal On the Web?", with panelists Bill and Joyce, as well as another woman whom I saw at the LJ party Sunday but whose journal name I don't know. This was an excellent panel, with gender issues, privacy issues, Internet/journal/blog history, and the like. I think the point I made that I was most pleased with was that there's always going to be inequality on the Web just because there are people on the Web who are funnier than me, better writers than me, better artists then me, and better self-promoters than me. These are significant coins of the on-line realm, and as a webjournaller who's been around longer than most but who doesn't have a large readership, I'm pretty aware of them. (Presumably the panel was conceived to be more about whether the web helps us see past characteristics which aren't "merit" elements, such as gender and race, but that wasn't the way the panel was going.)

I went to the con postmortem, and then hung out in the lobby with various folks. I ended up going to dinner with my editor friend and one of his writers, which was a lot of fun. Then I went briefly to the "dead cow" party (traditionally the "dead dog" party is the "come eat all of the food we have left over from the con suite" event, but the other local con, Odyssey Con, "hijacked" the party to a venue down the hall, which has the advantage of letting the con suite folks, such as Hope who is involved in running it most years, to tear down the suite without policing people as well).

Then I went home.

I had a great con. I went through some post-con letdown in the evening, and went for a walk down State Street and sat in a coffee shop for a while. But that's my problem. I'm hoping I can come back next year. It's tricky to come because Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference moved a couple of years ago from before Memorial Day to after it, which is really annoying as this is such a great time for me to take a week and a half off and come to the con and visit friends for the week afterwards. Next year will be WisCon 30, which ought to be a great blowout (and will probably sell out, as I think they'll cap attendance at 1000). Here's hoping I can swing it. I might come back for just the long weekend if I have to.

And that, a long last, is my WisCon 29 con report. Time to go get lunch.

Technorati tag: wiscon

If you're wondering what these tags are for, you can click on the "wiscon" link in the previous paragraph to go to a page which is collecting WisCon journal/blog entries, set up by Bill. It's a rather clumsy mechanism - there should be a way to tag an entry invisibly so Technorati can pick it up - but it seems to work. Of course, unless it collects my entries, the jury's still out!

Also, if you're a LiveJournal user, you can find my LiveJournal here. It's mostly just links back to entries in this journal, but is a handy way to follow my journal (via your friends list) if you're not up for using the RSS feed.